I'll Be Home For More Than Christmas
by Raberba girl
Summary: Looks like she won't be alone on Christmas Eve after all. For The Layman, who likes this pairing.


I'll Be Home For More Than Christmas  
A Rurouni Kenshin fanfic by Raberba girl

_Giftfic for The Layman_

Summary: Looks like she won't be alone on Christmas Eve after all.

A/N: Modern AU, because I can't really write in canon settings for RuroKen. *sweatdrop*

o.o.o

"Megumi-dono...you'll be all right, won't you?"

"Hm?" Megumi looked up to find her young assistant standing by the desk, gazing at her with a slightly worried look. "Oh - of course, Ken-san. Just a few more things to finish up, and then I can leave."

He smiled a little, though the worry still remained in his eyes. "These things keeping you here on Christmas Eve are _extremely_ urgent, this one assumes?"

Megumi looked past him, at the toddler trotting around the office, and at the woman energetically berating someone over a cell phone as she followed the child around and deftly kept his curious hands away from the items on the shelves.

"It is Christmas Eve, isn't it," Megumi said. "Go on home, Ken-san. Your vacation starts now."

"When will yours?"

"Tonight," she said firmly. "Don't worry, I won't work tomorrow. And frankly, Ken-san, I don't think it's really your business to dictate how I spend my holidays."

"No," he said softly, "but as a friend, this one thinks it might be his business to ensure that you are happy before he takes his leave of you. Please, come join us for dinner?"

She hesitated, not wanting to commit to something and limit her options. She wanted to _mope_, dang it. Though it was sweet that he meant well. "Tomorrow," she finally said. "I'll come over for brunch tomorrow, all right?"

He smiled again, wider this time. "That sounds good."

Misao snapped the phone closed. "Ugh, _idiots_. This is why everyone needs to celebrate Christmas, so I'll have ONE DAY where people aren't whining to me about screwed-up shipments and transaction delays and incompetent admins and arrogant-"

Kenshin laughed and went to put an arm around his wife, kissing her cheek. "Megumi-dono is coming over to eat with us tomorrow. You two can enjoy complaining to each other then, you seem to have a lot in common."

Misao grinned and waved her fingers at Megumi in salute. "Ah, commiseration. Looking forward to it, Sensei."

"Me, too."

"Sword," Kenji announced, waving a drill head he had found.

"_No_, Kenji, put that down!"

The little family's exuberant warmth kept Megumi smiling, but once they were gone, quiet settled down around her, and she sighed. _'Lonely old workaholic, that's what you are, Megumi...'_

As she had half-intended, she ended up working until very late, only getting up to leave when it occurred to her that she should do so before she got too tired to drive. Then it was pulling up to her cold, dark house, struggling to unlock the front door with no light, tossing things down once she got inside and going to flop on the couch and turn the TV on, just for a moment, just long enough to rest and gather what was left of her energy to get up again and make dinner...

_Knock, knock._

Megumi's eyes flew open. Apparently she had dozed off...there was a different show on.

_"Oi!"_ a voice yelled from outside.

She froze. _'It...can't be...'_

_"Freezing out here, Vixen! Hurry up."_

Surge of emotion. It was varied and all mixed together so that she couldn't tell exactly _how_ she felt, elated and furious and horrified and excited all at the same time. Not sure how she felt, but she definitely felt SOMETHING.

_"Pleeeeaaaase, Vix- Come on! I know you're in there!"_

On her feet, marching briskly across the living room, all trace of fatigue forgotten, ripping open the front door-

zomg so gorgeous. Scruffy disgusting jerk who smelled and needed to shave that stubble and cut that horrible tangled mane of hair, but his eyes were sparkling more than ever and he was beautiful. She wanted to punch him.

"'Sup, Vixen," he grinned.

She slammed the door in his face. Then collapsed against the wood and only half managed not to simultaneously squee and burst into tears.

_"Oi! Megumi!"_

_Sanosuke._ The breath caught in her throat, her lips formed his name but her voice was silent. _Sano, Sano, Sano, oh, I missed you so much, I _hate_ you..._

_"Megumi...please..."_

Straightened up again. Took a deep breath. Face perfectly composed as she opened the door. "What do you want?"

"It's COLD! Let me in!"

"Why should I?" she snapped. "Did it ever occur to that stupid tiny bird brain of yours that maybe I _don't want to see you_?"

"Aw, Megumi-"

"Two years! Two YEARS, no calls, no messages, and now all of a sudden you waltz up out of nowhere and think we can just pick things up again where we left off!?"

"Yeah, can we do it _in_side?"

"I have another boyfriend now, Sanosuke. I've moved on."

He went very quiet.

She waited.

"...He's not here, is he?"

"He's coming over in about an hour."

"...I'll be gone by then," he said, subdued in a way she'd never seen. It...didn't make her feel happy, seeing him like that. "Just wanted to warm up real quick...Kenshin'll let me crash at his place."

"...You have twenty minutes," she said, surprised when it came out as a whisper.

He pushed his way into the front hall, loud just in his movements and taking up more space than needed and simply being attractively masculine, though still smelling like he hadn't bathed in days.

"Ugh, you know what, go shower."

"Huh?"

"I won't kick you out for now because I am a very kind person, but you're disgusting." She pointed toward the hallway where the bathroom was. "Go fix that."

It wasn't the full grin, but his mouth did quirk up a bit. "You sure, Vix?"

"What were you planning to do, roll in a bird bath?"

"Hey, I may be homeless, but I'm not _that_ desperate. It's not like Kenshin doesn't have a shower."

"Well, if you're going to be here for twenty minutes, you can be sure that your filthy self is not going to be touching any of my furniture, so hurry and clean up. I've got preparations to make."

"Oh yeah..."

As soon as he'd shut the door, Megumi ran to the kitchen, heart pounding with panic and, even more, with elation. _'He's back, he's back, he's back, he's back...'_

_'You hate him,'_ she tried to tell herself.

_'I don't care. He's back. He's here. He's home.'_

_'Throw him out, _now_, before it's too late.'_

_'It was already Too Late a long time ago.'_

She turned the oven on, threw pans and ingredients and cooking stuff on the counter so it'd look like she'd been working on dinner for a while, rushed to drag out some Christmas decorations and hang them up so she wouldn't look like she'd been a sulking loser all this time, hid the photo she always kept on the shelf, the one with the two of them holding hands and happy and laughing as if there weren't any problems in the world...

ZOMG GORGEOUS. When he came out again. Long hair trailing across his neck and shoulders in clean, slightly damp locks; beautiful muscled flesh, nicely exposed since he'd emerged shirtless; and those eyes, they were never going to change, which meant she'd never stop loving them and the man behind them...

_'I hate you,'_ she thought affectionately. _'You're too beautiful.'_

"Borrowed a razor," he said nonchalantly. "Decided not to grow a beard after all."

"For all your plans to intrude on Kenshin's hospitality, you seem to be doing a fine job of taking advantage of my own."

"Thought you said I'd always be welcome here." He watched her as she marched around the kitchen, keeping herself busy with what looked like a big mess she was planning to serve for dinner.

"That was before you disappeared for two years."

"Megumi, I was in _trouble_. I thought Kenshin told you."

"It never occurred to you to tell me yourself, did it. Never occurred to you to _talk_ to me about your father's troubles. Never occurred to you that I might _mind_ when police are suddenly questioning me about the idiot who disappeared the night before he was supposed to become my fiancé."

"Oh...you found out about the ring?"

"It was IN YOUR POCKET, Sanosuke," she burst out in exasperation, though she was sprinkling turmeric with her back toward him as she said it. "You _left_ the _engagement ring_ in your _pocket_ and nearly sent it through the wash. Of course I found it."

"Ohhhhh, _that's_ where it went... You still have it?"

"What, you think I'd keep it? When selling it would get me enough to pay off the car, you think I _wouldn't_ get rid of it when every time I looked at that ring reminded me of someone I hated?"

"...You don't really hate me, Megumi."

"Just because _you_ don't hate yourself doesn't mean no one else does."

There was a pause. She could practically hear him trying to figure out the sentence structure, and then she could practically hear him give up.

"Thought you'd trust me more than that."

"It's been more than twenty minutes," she said abruptly. "Get out, Sanosuke. I don't want to even- Mm- _Ugh_."

He stood up. And walked over to her, because she hadn't looked at him even once all this time. He put his hands on her shoulders and shifted her until he could see her face and confirm that she had ceased to speak, not from disgust, but because she was crying. "Megumi," he said quietly. "I'm sorry."

"..."

"Forgive me."

"...Get out," she managed to whisper.

"You're still the only woman I'd ever marry. And the only one I love. I wouldn't fall in love with someone I wouldn't want to marry."

She didn't say anything, and after a moment, he brushed a tentative kiss near her mouth. Suddenly her arms were flung around him, her body pressed against his, he just had time to try to keep his footing before losing himself to her furious, thirsting kiss.

When they finally parted, breathing hard, her eyes were sparking and her grip on him was obviously not going to loosen any time soon.

"At least you still need me for _something_," he remarked. "There is no boyfriend, is there."

"I hate you. I can't _stand_ you."

"You still have the ring."

"I'll never trust you again."

"Come here, Vixen." Hoisting her up, her legs slung over one arm as he supported her back with the other, he smiled and leaned his head down for another kiss, laughing a little when she beat him to it.

She was crying again when she was finally able to drag her lips free, when she was finally sated enough to stop _needing_ him for two seconds. "Sano...don't leave this time. Don't leave."

He started carrying her into the living room, like he'd meant to do earlier. "Hey. If I have to leave again, I'm taking you with me." He cocked his head a little. "If you want."

"I can't stand to lose you again," she said fiercely. "And I'm _not going to_, do you understand me?"

He chuckled. "Because you'd kill me first, right?"

"Exactly."

They kissed again, and Megumi ended up not spending her Christmas Eve moping after all.

o.o.o

Author's Notes: ...Started out easy to write, because yay family fluff, but then it got difficult. *sweatdrop* R. girl is definitely not big on romance, and is most likely never going to do anything like this again, but you're worth making this last effort for, Layman. :) I ought to post this closer to Christmas, but you've been waiting so politely since July and _oh my gosh I actually wrote something for you that __worked_, so I wanted to post it ASAP before something else went wrong!

The Layman is a good friend of mine and has been amazingly supportive of my work for both the RuroKen and Kingdom Hearts fandoms. I've been failing at his giftfic big-time, but I know he likes Sano/Megumi and this little plot bunny for them finally occurred to me, which I think he might appreciate better than the KH thing I'm trying to write for him that's more to my own tastes. ^^; So this is for you, Layman! I still want to try to write that "watching RK" scene as your "real" giftfic, since it's something you've actually asked for more than once. But this Sano/Megumi story is hopefully a bonus, to make up for the short length that one is probably going to be, as well as to thank you for your patience and for being, as far as I know, the only reader who doesn't hate my newer RK stuff. XD

**I usually don't like Kenshin/Misao (or Aoshi/Misao, for that matter) because of her age, but I'm okay with it in AUs, and she suited the story best. Kenji's their kid because I always avoid making up OCs whenever possible.**

**Guys, DON'T BOTHER SAYING ANYTHING NEGATIVE ABOUT THIS STORY or its pairings, because I don't trust anyone except Layman to have the discernment to make **_**actual constructive criticism**_** rather than just picking on the writing because they don't agree with a pairing. All you'll accomplish by insulting my pairing choices is to make me hate Kenshin/Kaoru even more and want to write crack just to tick you off the way you tick me off. Kenshin/Yumi, Sôjirô/Misao, Sanosuke/Tomoe, Aoshi/Kaoru, Kenshin/Tae, Akira/Megumi, etc. etc. etc. FTW.**

(Sorry for that rant, Layman, but I feel like posting anything in the RK fandom these days is like traveling through a minefield, and I can't filter who reads this. -.-)


End file.
